[February 7, 2016] It is rare that anyone of us today would find ourselves in such a situation that physical courage was necessary. We normally think of it in the context of soldiers in wartime or of police and firefighters containing a dangerous situation. And yet, having to willingly decide between death, injury, danger, and pain, many people would recoil in fear and many would fail to act.
Much has been written about physical courage; studied for millennia from Socrates to Aristotle to modern psychologists and military leaders. Interestingly, despite all this attention to the concept, little is known about it and we consistently fail to train people or to predict who will show courage in the face of danger.
Physical courage remains a mystery but there are some elements that we do know and I’ve written about it here and here. The main element common among those who show courage is that they have talked to their peers about their fears and what they would do if a situation demanded their bravery. To illustrate, attention is brought to a not-well-known incident that happened many years ago.
On this date in 1954, U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower spoke from the White House about how four U.S. military chaplains, of four different faiths, willingly sacrificed their lives so that four others might live. Eisenhower said that “America’s freedom, her courage, her strength, and her progress have had their foundation in faith…” He was using his leadership by the bully pulpit to show what matters most to a nation … faith.
Eisenhower stated in his address that:
“As a former soldier, I am delighted that our veterans are sponsoring a movement to increase our awareness of God in our daily lives. In battle, they learned a great truth – that there are no atheists in the foxholes” – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower
It was the night of February 3, 1943 when an overcrowded Allied ship, the U.S.A.T. Dorchester, was torpedoed by a Nazi submarine. Before it sank, four chaplains calmed sailors and distributed life jackets. When there were no more life jackets, the four chaplains ripped off their own and put them on four young men.1 As the ship sank, survivors could see the four chaplains2 linking arms and bracing themselves on the sinking troop transport deck. They bowed their heads in prayer as they sank to their icy deaths.
Acts of bravery occur often unexpectedly and in extraordinary situations. The four chaplains will forever be remembered for what they did and are a supreme example of physical courage.
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- http://www.wnd.com/2016/02/the-little-remembered-tale-of-4-brave-chaplains/?cat_orig=diversions
- They were:
- Lieutenant George L. Fox, Methodist
- Lieutenant Clark V. Poling, Dutch Reformed
- Lieutenant John P. Washington, Roman Catholic
- Lieutenant Alexander D. Goode, Jewish